by Jeff Abbott
“Across his ass,” I said. “His girlfriend gave it to him with a kitchen knife. She should have had your wakizashi.”
He smiled at my using the Japanese term. “And why did he get it?”
“He was screwing around with girls he was shipping to Israel and Dubai,” I said. “Breaking them in for the customers.” I couldn’t let the disgust show on my face. Most of the girls trafficked were from the former Soviet republics, desperate for work; they’d been promised waitressing or secretarial jobs; they were going to be broken with rape and heroin before they met their new pimps. “Girlfriend didn’t approve. He was lucky she cut his backside and not his front.”
“And how did you see the scar?”
I’d seen it in his file, of course. I hoped Djuki’s explanation as to the scar’s origin was accurate. If it wasn’t, I was dead; Piet would kill me on the spot if I couldn’t kill him first. “He kept up his practice of breaking in the girls when needed. I saw it then.”
Piet gave me the slightest of nods. I was inside the circle, at least for now. My creds proven by knowledge of a rapist’s ass scar.
“Make your calls,” he said to me. “The goods will be here in two days. You will arrange a pickup of them when they arrive, repackage them for shipment to America, and then get them past customs and onto the ship in Rotterdam. You’ll be paid fifty thousand in euros. If you need help forging documents, my boss Edward is an expert forger.”
Repackaging the shipment. Oh, yes. That would be it, the key. I would need help. I would need the whole gang together to help me.
And that’s when I could take them down, rescue Yasmin, and find out the truth from the scarred man. The opportunity dangled before me, bright as a diamond.
I hid my sudden relief by holding up hands. “Wait a minute. You’ve cut the Turk loose, right? I’m not coming aboard if he’s about to bring the law down on you.”
“He’s not a worry for anyone anymore.” This was one of the twins speaking, the bald one.
“Oh,” I said.
Piet said, “The Turk is a former MIT agent.” MIT was Milli stihbarat Tekilatı—Turkey’s CIA. “He got run out of the agency for malfeasance. He bribed a group of Turks here to let him work with them to get close to me; I won’t ever work with those guys again. He tried to screw me over; he failed.” He leveled a stare. “The twins are very good about finding out what we need to know about people.”
The Turk was like me, then; Bahjat Zaid had found a fellow reject to try and save his daughter. “Well, I don’t fail when I take on a job.”
Piet glanced at the twins and then at me and said, “You want to break in a girl, Samson?”
“What?”
He jerked his head toward a door. “I got eight girls heading to Nigeria and Israel. Two still giving me a bit of lip, even with the horse in their veins to settle them down. But nothing settles them like getting broke in.” A second test; if I was experienced as a human trafficker, I shouldn’t blink much at raping the merchandise.
“Go choose one you like, give her a ride,” Piet said.
“You said we could have a turn,” the bald twin protested. “Why does he get first pick?”
I thought how pleasant it would be to kill Piet. I had not killed but once before, and it was not an experience that I had liked. No human being would. But with Piet, I wouldn’t blink at it at all. It would be a service to humanity. Part of my heart, the part that thought I might be a husband and father again as soon as I found Lucy and the baby, said don’t be so ready to kill. But this guy… if Edward had taken Lucy, had this monster been near her?
Had Piet touched my wife?
It took a total gripping down inside my heart to say, “Do you move a lot of women?”
“My best revenue stream. From Moldova, mostly. Doing more from Russia and the Baltics as the economy worsens. About thirty a month. Usually special requests. Can’t keep up the demand for the young ones. Come see.”
I glanced at Nic, who trafficked in pictures of kids. Filling specific demands. Welcome to the personalized world of human suffering.
I followed Piet down a short hallway to a side office. The twins and Nic followed me. I smelled rotten fruit, burned steak, and a chemical stench, with sweat an uneasy undercurrent.
He opened the door into a dimly lit room, a side parlor to hell. In the flickering gloom I could see eight women along the wall. Manacles cupped their ankles and their wrists. The chains threaded back to the concrete on the floor. The women sat huddled. They wore their tops still—stained, torn. But their skirts and jeans and underwear were gone, robbing them of dignity. I saw bruises and tears and emptiness in faces that had endured too much horror. I felt a hot red rage glow in my brain.
But if I killed Piet and Nic now to free these women, I ruined any chance of getting close to Edward, to finding Lucy and the baby.
But I could not permit this. Rewrite the scenario, I told myself. Let Mila know what horror lay inside this room. “You’re trafficking in women,” I said. Piet scowled at me as I stated the obvious. I hoped Mila was still in range, that she was listening. Once we left the machinists’ shop, Mila could rescue these women. But that would put me in danger. Being the new guy, if this operation got compromised, I would be compromised. They would kill me on the spot.
Impossible choice. I needed an option, fast. I needed a scapegoat.
“Which one you want? The redhead?”
Six awful little words. The redhead looked to be seventeen and I could see her lip quivering in horror, in fear.
“Just don’t hit the faces or the tits. You got to whip one, do it on the back of her legs. No one ever looks at the back of their legs,” one of the twins said.
“No,” I said. “No thank you.”
“What’s wrong with you? They’re like ripe fruit. Pluck one.” Piet laughed. “We’ll both take one. Seal our friendship. And we won’t get cut on our asses like stupid Djuki, will we?” He laughed, and I saw the women shudder. I tried not to think about what he’d already done to them, what he’d do to them if I left them in his grip. He prodded the closest one with the tip of the wakizashi and she burst into shuddering tears.
I looked at Piet’s neck and thought about how I would break it.
Nic had followed us, watching me, seeing me dipped in this inhuman litmus test.
“I’m a businessman,” I said. “I don’t stoop to sampling the goods. That’s for the muscle.”
“Eh?” Piet didn’t like that. I’d implied he was not a boss, that he was muscle. I could see rage rising in his stare. He stepped back from the terrified woman and the edge of the sword glittered in the faint light from the hallway.
“Are you serious?” I said. “Is this going to be how you test me? Whether I’m willing to break a girl?”
Piet’s mouth worked.
One of the young women—the redhead—looked up at me. I’d spoken English and who knew if she understood.
“Don’t talk to him this way,” Nic said. “What the hell is wrong with you?” Tension, tight as wire, strained his voice. I stared at him.
At this point I was only just inside the circle. But only just in wasn’t good enough. I needed to be all the way in. I glanced at Nic. Rock, meet hard place. If I played Nic’s game of betrayal, Piet might never let me near Edward. If I didn’t—Nic was unpredictable. I didn’t need Nic. I needed Piet.
I gave Nic a last smile. He was a traitor to his friends and he was a scumbag who used children. I didn’t mind paving my road with his bones.
48
I WANT IN,” I SAID TO PIET. “But on my terms.” Then I turned and launched a hammering kick into Nic’s face. He crumpled. I didn’t want him talking, so I slammed a second kick, precise, into his throat. Not hard enough to kill but enough to keep him nice and quiet.
Piet had a gun out, leveled at me, before my foot was down. It was good to know he had more than that stupid for-show sword. The women screamed and retreated against the wall; I raised my hands.
/> “He’s your problem. Not me.” I pointed at the sprawled Nic with a tip of my toe. Nic made gaspy, breathy noises, eyes blinking in shock. “He’s setting you up. He wants to take over your operation.”
“Outside.” Piet gestured with the gun, screamed at the women to be quiet. They fell into a snuffle of tears and whispers. He gestured toward Nic. I pulled Nic to his feet, shoved him staggering out into the hallway and back to the main room. I pushed him as the twins hurried out and Piet shut and locked the door. Five seconds I was alone with Nic, but that was all I needed as the twins and Piet rushed up behind us.
“What the hell is your problem?” Piet said.
“He’s busting on you,” I said. “Selling you out. Check him.”
Nic moaned through his ruined lip and broken teeth. He started to sit up, consciousness rousing, and Piet pushed him back down to the floor with the barrel of the gun.
“He wanted me to lie about you to Edward. Say that you had been stealing girls from shipments for another client, reselling them.” I kept my voice steady, looking at Nic as his eyes widened in horror. Because, you know, I was telling the truth. It’s always easier to tell the truth than to lie. “He wanted you out, and himself in as lead trafficker. He figured there’s more in live women than in photos of little kids. He’s working for someone else who wants your business, and betraying you is the cut.”
Piet kept the gun glued on Nic, who stayed still and bubbled blood from his mouth where my heel had smashed lip and teeth. He ran a hand along Nic’s pockets, under the jacket.
At first I thought Piet had missed it. He stood, not even aiming his gun at Nic anymore. Then I saw the thin little tube in Piet’s hand, pinched between thumb and forefinger. He held it up to Nic’s face. Nic blinked.
“What is this?” Piet asked, in a whisper that sounded like dirt sliding off a coffin’s top.
“I don’t know, it’s not mine,” Nic mumbled. “He’s a goddamned liar, Piet. Who are you going to believe, him or me? You know me.”
“Yes. Yes, I do know you Nic.” Piet inspected Mila’s little transmitter. He tried to cut it apart with his thumb, failed. He opened a knife from his pocket and sliced into the microphone and unpeeled it apart carefully. I’d had seconds to slip it into Nic’s pocket. Giving up the transmitter would be cutting my only link with Mila, assuming she hadn’t been grabbed by Howell and his men, but I had to do it. It was my way to save Piet’s victims and to put all the blame on Nic when Mila rescued them. My heart beat out a hard, skittering rhythm in my chest.
I watched Piet’s face as he inspected the state-of-the-art device. “God damn it,” he said. “This is like freaking spy gear. Who are you working for, Nic?”
“No one… I work for you. He’s lying. You don’t know him, you know me.”
“Yeah, and you’ve had the hate for me for weeks,” Piet said. “You think I’m blind? You always had your goddamn precious nose up in the air around me. Who do you work for? Stand up.”
Nic stood. The light in his eyes shifted. Darkened in rage, the anger of the trapped animal. “I don’t work for anyone but you and Edward. He’s tricked me. He’s tricked you. He planted that on me.”
I shook my head. But Piet raised the gun from Nic to me.
“I guess I have a choice to make,” Piet said.
49
CALL IN REINFORCEMENTS?” August asked Howell. They sat in the van, half a block from the address provided by the Chinese student. It was a gray block of industrial space. Multiple buildings, but the complex looked mostly deserted. Two vehicles parked in front of one door at the end. The rest of the parking lot space was empty.
“You’re rather timid,” Howell said. “Surprises me.”
“One man’s caution,” August said. “I don’t want my friend dead when he’s more valuable to us alive.”
“I like the idea of moving now. No witnesses around,” Van Vleck said.
“I want this kept quiet. I don’t want to attract the attention of the Dutch authorities. What do we have in the van?” Howell asked.
“Four assault rifles, bulletproof vests, infrared goggles.” August looked at him with a scowl. “There’s only the three of us.”
“I can count, Agent Holdwine.”
“I think, respectfully, we should call in backup.” August glanced at Van Vleck. “Capra is trained. We don’t know about the other guy. We should go in with overwhelming force.”
“Two vehicles here. One van, that brought Capra and his contact. The other car’s small. There’s not an army inside.” Howell smiled. “Let’s go, gentleman. I am tired of Sam Capra being a problem for us.”
Van Vleck and August started putting on the bulletproof gear.
“Get that young man to his feet,” Howell said, gesturing at the Chinese hacker. “We’ll use him.”
50
MILA PARKED HER CAR a few blocks away from the warehouse, at a small café. She pressed her earpiece and closed her eyes for a moment. She heard most of the conversation between Piet and Sam, the offer to Sam of one of the captives to rape. Her breathing grew very calm; a hot, hollow rage expanded in her chest.
She wore a black trench coat over her suit—she had a gun for each pocket and now she also carried a retractable baton. It was her favorite weapon, and she imagined beating Piet and Nic senseless with it. She hurried toward the machinists’ shop on foot.
She heard Sam’s advice to search Nic and the discovery of the microphone and knew what Sam had done. She applauded him. But he was cutting her loose, severing the one tie between them so as to delve closer to these monsters.
But if Howell blundered in now, he would ruin their chance to break inside the ring.
Mila watched the van, crouching from behind a corner a block away. She saw the back of the van open; the Chinese student they’d grabbed lurched out, hands bound. She could see the kid’s face was battered and bruised, a wet smear of blood below his nostrils. Then the two thick-necked men. Then Howell. All armed.
The three men stopped at the door. She could see the Chinese boy shake his head. They’d stopped at an access keypad by the door. The Chinese boy, hands shaking, entered a code.
The four men entered. Mila hurried toward the van. They were going in full throttle, so they were more worried about their front than their back.
She slid under the van and began to count, watching the door. Her timing would have to be impeccable if Sam was to survive.
51
HIM OR ME?” I ASKED. Nic looked too shocked to speak.
“Or both?” Piet said. “I don’t need trouble.”
“But you still need help,” I said. “Or you wouldn’t even have bothered to talk to me. Nic thinks you’re a joke. He ever make fun of your sword?”
The corner of Piet’s mouth jerked. Sometime in those months, Nic’s disdain had been noted and filed. “Everything you said is correct,” Piet said. “Here. Fine.”
And he handed me the gun. “Kill him.”
Final test. If I was a cop or a plant, I wasn’t going to gun down an unarmed man. This was the line that no one with a shred of decency left would cross.
What decency did I have left? I raised the gun; my head crowded with Lucy and the baby. This man had helped kidnap and assault women, shipping them into slavery. He was smuggling weapons. He was hacking into government databases and stealing information. He was trading in photos of assaulted and abused children.
And I was what—a courtroom on two legs?
I guess I was.
Him or me. And with me, my family.
I fired.
The bullet caught Nic in the chest and he fell back. Bad shot. It didn’t kill him outright. Sorry, Nic. He looked at me with a wrenching stare of agony and hate and I fired again and his face didn’t matter anymore.
I wouldn’t see it again, except maybe in my dreams.
I pulled my shirt loose, wiped my prints off the Glock, and handed the gun back to Piet. My hand didn’t shake. And for one moment the past five se
conds seemed like a life that happened to another man.
“Well,” Piet said into the silence. He stared down at Nic’s body.
“Well,” I said. Well, well, well. Who was I now?
“Let’s get to work.” He gestured at the goods. “I like your ideas, but I’ve already got a load of goods to use as camouflage. You reinforced my opinion as to what would work best.”
Nothing like brownie points from the trafficker. I inspected the boxes. Counterfeit cigarettes.
“You’re going to ship your super-duper top-secret stuff inside illicit cigarettes that you then sell in the United States and double your profit. Two birds, one stone.”
“I maximize my efforts.”
Piet was much smarter than he looked. He gestured at the boxes. “About a million euros’ worth.”
I pointed at the shredded, destroyed microphone. “You better hope there wasn’t a tracker in there. Whoever he worked for will be coming when contact gets cut.”
“Which is why we’re going to move everything right now. The women, the cigs.” He turned to the twins and started issuing hard orders in rapid-fire Dutch.
How could I get the women to safety without blowing my cover? Right now, I couldn’t. The thought hurt.
I heard a soft ping. A door opening. I couldn’t see the front door from here: the boxes and boxes of illicit cigarettes made a labyrinth between here and the front door.
I was counting on the arrival being Mila. Which meant I wanted Piet heading out the back with me, abandoning the captives and his goods. “Are you expecting anyone?”
“No,” he whispered. We leaned against the wall. Stacks of boxes barred part of our view. He gestured at the twins, who took up positions ahead of us, closer to the door.
I saw a figure step into view. Not Mila. A thin, young Asian man, walking in, wearing an ill-fitting jacket and loose jeans. He had thick black hair cut in a bad slash; tufts stuck up like little exclamation points.